I've tried AWN, Cairo-Dock, Docky and tint2 and always come back to AWN. Tint2 is very configurable but is more like a window list than a dock. Cairo-Dock is a monstrosity for anyone who likes simplicity and Docky is very similar to Awn except it's a bit less customizable. They're all solid and do what they set out to do well.

Thank you for this thread. That’s all I can say. You most definitely have made this forum into something special. You clearly know what you are doing, you’ve covered so many bases. Thanks!

I recently discovered Cairo Dock, and although I like the simpler things in life I find it easy to use and more than capable. I don't think it's a monstrosity at all! Plus I've found it only takes up the same resources as AWN used to. On my system at least. It's pretty amazing tbh.

Using Docky here. Aside from having to use something other than Compiz (under MATE), it works great... except during upgrades/updates/installs, where it disappears and must be manually relaunched. This is significantly annoying, IMO, but none of the docks seem to do well with that.

Honestly, I think they all have their advantages: cairo dock reminds me of compiz - it's very customizable and it has lots of special effects; docky is more simplistic, but still very nice, and awn is in between - it has effects, its pretty customizable, but it isn't overkill (not to say cairo dock is). You could compare cairo dock to KDE, AWN to Xfce, and Docky to LXDE. My personal favorite is AWN, but I'm using docky right now because AWN isn't in the Testing repo.

I also don't thing Cairo Dock is a monstrosity! It is very capable and by implication may appear over complex, but it can be as complex or simple as you want. If all you want is a simple dock ala docky then it can be that, it you want a gee wiz all singing all dancing replacement for gnome shell/panel then it can be that also, or anything in between.

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